Queen's Speech

Earl of Onslow Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I reply to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, as a once enthusiastic reformer—he will just have to wait and see. If he would like to send me the watertight commitments from both sides of the House to which he referred, I would be very interested to see them—they do not exist.

[The Earl of Onslow]

I speak as a long-time reformer—and as an elected Peer, I hasten to add. Would not my noble friend regard it as perfectly reasonable, if we are going to reform the House, to have a cull of life Peers in exactly the same way as there was a cull of hereditary Peers?

[Lord McNally]

I note what my noble friend said—or, as he told me yesterday he would prefer me to call him, “my noble acquaintance”. He is still coming to terms with the oiks that this coalition is bringing with it.

Let me say a few personal words. I know the esteem in which this House is currently held; I see every day the value and diligence of its work and the expertise noble Lords bring to scrutiny—that is now—but I am clear that this House as presently constituted is not sustainable. We could soon be a House of more than 800 Peers—

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[Baroness Miller of Hendon]

My Lords, there is an old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times”. Well, we all are here now. The one thing that Members of your Lordships’ House on all sides can say is that none of us voted for the present situation.

[The Earl of Onslow]

None of us voted at all.

[Baroness Miller of Hendon]

Yes, of course, it does not include us in this House.

What we witnessed in the five days after election night is but a foretaste of what we can expect if the country turns to proportional representation: days of beer and sandwiches-type haggling and the wholesale abandonment of manifesto commitments made to one side or another. Five days is nothing. In future, it could easily be more. Germany took 40 days to form its current Government, while Belgium was without a Government for six months.

In the recent events, we also saw the Liberal Democrats announcing in advance that they had the moral obligation to negotiate with the Conservatives. Then, at the last minute, they entered into secret negotiations with Labour. I had visions in those hours of my party being humiliatingly jilted at the altar. The words of the old music hall song came to mind, although I will not sing it:

“Can’t get away to marry you today. My wife won’t let me”.

But what does this conduct say for the hopes of future good faith in a coalition? Trust is an essential ingredient.

That brings me to the first of my two questions on the present situation as it affects your Lordships’ House, as it is still called, at least for the moment. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, touched on the first one in moving the Motion on the adjournment on Tuesday when she pointed out the strange bedfellows that a coalition makes. In the past, I have referred to Members of the Liberal Democrat Benches as “the noble Lord” so and so. In the rose garden, the Deputy Prime Minister referred to his “colleagues” and to a “partnership”. Am I supposed to say “my noble colleague” or “my noble partner”? Actually, it has been made clear by my noble friend Lord McNally that “my noble friend” will do. That at least sounds nicer. However, I must point out one thing to my noble friend, which the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, also pointed out—the less than supportive attitude that my party and its policies have often received from the Liberal Democrats in the past. A Member of the other place beat me to it by voicing the same question on Tuesday. I was going to consult the Leader of the House or the learned Clerk, but I shall take my noble friend’s advice and leave it there.

There is another major and far more serious, indeed basic, constitutional measure about which I have great reservations—the requirement for a majority of 55 per cent to secure a Dissolution of Parliament before the expiry of the proposed fixed term. I do not believe that a centuries-old democratic convention can simply be demolished by Parliament without a referendum or some discussion, especially by a Parliament in which no party has a majority and no party included the suggestion in its manifesto. The convention is basic: a Government who cannot command even a simple majority of Members of the other place have to fall.

As Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister rightly and insistently, but fruitlessly, demanded a referendum on the Lisbon treaty because it gave away so much of our national sovereignty. Yet here he is preparing to legislate away a major concept of parliamentary supremacy—the unfettered power to dismiss a Government with a minimum majority vote. I remind your Lordships that, with a 55 per cent rule in place, Chamberlain could have claimed to have morally survived the vital vote just 70 years ago, on May 7 1940, because he had a 58 per cent majority. Even if this arrangement is sanctioned by an Act of Parliament, which I predict will have a difficult passage in your Lordships’ House, I point out that one Parliament cannot bind its successors and cannot even be bound not to repeal a law that it has itself recently passed.

I have to ask what credibility a lame duck Prime Minister would have if he lost a vote of confidence by even the “one is enough” described by Disraeli 130 years ago. Also, what influence would a Prime Minister have over his own fractious Back-Benchers, or in this case also a mutinous coalition partner, which came third in the recent election, if he abandoned the power to request the Dissolution of Parliament? The composition of the other place is such that the joint votes of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats can barely muster the 55 per cent between them. Even if the Lib Dems do not abandon ship for some reason in, say, year four, it will take only a couple of Back-Benchers anxious about their minuscule majorities to veto any resolution. The whole concept is impractical, if not nonsensical, as well as—and this is the important thing—unconstitutional.

The Prime Minister has also announced that Mr Clegg will be consulted on ministerial appointments and sackings. What happens if Mr Clegg does not like the changes or objects to one of his nominees being sacked or moved? There is plenty of scope for disharmony in the present superficially cosy partnership. The unfettered power of patronage to appoint and dismiss Ministers, to promote those worthy of advancement and to replace those who fail is a most important instrument of prime ministerial authority, as well of good government. Now it is being severely constrained, to say the least. These proposed constitutional changes bring to mind the aphorism used in his resignation speech by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, to whom the Prime Minister was once an adviser:

“We give the impression of being in office but not in power”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/6/93; col. 285.]

These problems have been created because of a shotgun marriage between the two parties, which was clearly cobbled together in frenetic negotiations over a couple of days in a conclave held in the Cabinet Office, without the benefit of the advice of constitutional lawyers. As the old adage says, “Marry in haste and repent at leisure”.

Speaking as a party activist, and a Whip when we were last in Government, I would sometimes have to remind voters—and even MPs on occasions—unwilling to support part of our programme that being a Conservative was not like going into a restaurant and choosing from an à la carte menu. The manifesto is a table d’hôte. I would tell them that that is what they had to do: they had to swallow the whole package. Following my advice, in my 17 years as a Member of your Lordships’ House, I have never voted against my party’s Whip. However, in common with other colleagues with whom I have spoken in recent days, I feel that it will be a struggle to support some of the constitutional matters at issue at present.

Your Lordships will notice that I have confined my observations to the constitution, which I love. Some of us on the Conservative Benches are derisively and condescendingly referred to by the media as the “party faithful”. I wear that badge faithfully and proudly. But I am also faithful to the constitution and the constitutional conventions of this country and Parliament and I will not see them lightly diminished.

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[Lord Rennard]

The answer is no, I was not involved, and I do not know how it came out of the negotiations, but the 55 per cent is logical for this Parliament. As I have argued before with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, on “Newsnight”, it is relevant and effective for this Parliament because it is the first time that this has been done. I think that the case is made.

[The Earl of Onslow]

Is the noble Lord really saying that we should introduce 55 per cent statutorily for one Parliament alone? That is gerrymandering of the worst order.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, I beg to disagree on the basis that if you do not have a percentage like that, you simply do not have a fixed-term parliament. If it is possible for one party with 50 per cent plus one of the seats in the House of Commons to trigger an election, you allow that party, for its own interests, to choose the time of the election, rather than have the fixed term that works in so many other countries.

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[The Earl of Onslow]

My Lords, it is great to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol. I hope that, unlike one of his predecessors, he will not be pursued across the roof of his burning palace by rioters in Bristol, which once happened.

Macaulay stated in 1834 that,

“we look at the essential characteristics of the Whig and the Tory, we may consider each of them as the representative of a great principle, essential to the welfare of nations. One is, in an especial manner, the guardian of liberty, and the other, of order. One is the moving power, and the other the steadying power of the state. One is the sail, without which society would make no progress, the other the ballast, without which there would be small safety in a tempest”.

I hope that that exactly encapsulates the whole principle of this new coalition Government.

It is perfectly fair to say that Mr Cameron acted with supreme statesmanship immediately after the election, in which he was closely followed by Mr Clegg. This has resulted in a Government who I suggest are supported—or were supported at the polls—by more people than have supported any other Government since the advent of universal adult male suffrage, let alone universal suffrage. That gives this Government an essential ballast of authority to do the things that have to be done. It also combines those two principles—

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

Surely the principle of the moral authority which the noble Earl is talking about is when the Government have sought approval from the electorate for a particular set of legislative proposals—a manifesto. In this instance, both political parties have jettisoned their manifestos and the coalition agreement has never been put to the British people

[The Earl of Onslow]

My Lords, all Members of the House of Commons are elected on the Burkean principle: not as delegates but as representatives. I always have to think here, but the House knows what I mean. They are elected for their judgment. Thereby, when certain circumstances arise, as they did after this election, they had to make judgments on the facts as they were. The two leaders have taken a thoroughly great and statesmanlike decision.

I listened with great interest to the noble Lords, Lord Hunt, Lord Grocott and Lord Elystan-Morgan. I agreed essentially with them on fixed parliaments and the 55. If you say, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, did, that the aim of the Government is to return power to the people, making sure that they cannot have an election seems a very odd way to do that. But then I did not go to university, so perhaps I do not understand that.

In 1923, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said, Bonar Law was elected on a programme of free trade. When he died, Baldwin succeeded him and felt that he had to go to the country to get a mandate for a basic change in policy. I see nothing immoral or wrong about that. In fact, I see morality and right about that. The concept of 55—I do not know whether it is 55 seats or 55 per cent; and nor do the Government, who will have a consultation on that—seems absolutely, wrong. If the Government have lost power in a vote of no confidence, then they must be allowed to recommend a dissolution.

In France in the 1870s, the Government were defeated. I am not sure of my exact historical facts, but the President either could not, or would not, grant a dissolution. So what did they say? They said the French equivalent of “Yippee! What we can do is swap about being in government and we do not have to go to the people and give them any choice”. From then until 1940, when Pétain brought an end to the system—although it was reintroduced in 1945—the French had a Government every six weeks or months. If you have fixed-term Parliaments and an enormous trigger for a dissolution, together with an element of proportional representation, we will turn into the Third and Fourth Republics as sure as night follows day. Do we really want to bring Mendès-France, Daladier and all those other interminable French politicians back into the Palace of Westminster as new Franglais politicians, or something like that?

This is not the way to go about it. If a Government lose command of the House of Commons, that represents the basis of our constitution. Only the House of Commons can raise the money for the King or Queen’s Government to continue. If the Prime Minister loses the confidence of the House of Commons, he has to go—it is as simple as that—because he cannot raise the money to run the country, and that is why the House of Commons is, and has been for 300 years, the senior of the two Houses. This House, very wisely, gave up the right to raise tax some time in the 1340s. It did not give up the right to say, “No, you don’t raise tax”—which is a different issue. That was what brought about 1911.

I shall briefly comment on some of the other things. Between 1999 and the election, I thought that this House worked better than at any time that I have been in it, and I have been in it since 1971. That is not as long as my noble friend Lord Ferrers, but that is impossible. We used to combine in odd coalitions all over the place when the Government made mistakes. I know that as night follows day, however good this Government are, they will do silly things. All Governments do. I thought of calling my new Liberal Whig noble friends noble acquaintances. The independent Tories, of whom my noble friend Lord Lucas is certainly one, used regularly to vote with the Liberals against the Conservatives during the previous Session. I did that on the American extradition treaty and on control orders, and I do not resile from that for one moment. It seems to me that as a Back Bencher on a big government side, it is your duty to be constructively disloyal, and I promise my noble friends on the Front Bench, both Liberal and Tory, that I will be constructively disloyal because that is the duty of somebody who is here and who paid their debt to their political masters some time in 1801, or it may have been 1717, I do not know. That is how I hope that this Government will go on. I wish them the most enormous success because they are full of good ideas and represent the greatest section of the voting public since universal adult male suffrage.

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[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, in an excellent speech, mentioned the no confidence vote in 1979. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, will remember what Jim Callaghan said describing that event—“Turkeys voting for an early Christmas”. I assume that it is that memory that has led the noble Lord to argue for a fixed-term Parliament, so that if the turkeys with whom he now associates lose a vote of confidence, they will not have to leave government.

What a marvellous sight the coalition is! The language of Cameron and Clegg is the language of love. It reminds me painfully of those “Spitting Image” programmes in the 1980s. Do noble Lords remember the noble Lords, Lord Owen and Lord Steel, and the boy David nurtured in the arms of the noble Lord, Lord Owen? They had to choose a name for the leader and David Owen suggested that there should be one name from the Liberals—say, David—and one name from the SDP—say, Owen.

New politics—a coalition, and an opportunity to achieve through Parliament changes to the constitution which could be for the benefit of the whole country. There is a huge opportunity offered by this new politics, one which is in the process of being horribly lost. At the heart of the constitutional proposals are attempts to reduce the ability of Parliament to stand up to and restrain the Executive; proposals to prevent the Commons from forcing an election; proposals to make this House a creature of the Executive—something that it has not been since the late 1950s, when this House did not even bother to have votes, because a Tory Government down the road and all the Tories here did not think it worth while.

I think that a fixed-term Parliament is a good idea; it is a good idea to take away from the Prime Minister of the day the power to determine the date of the election. But depriving him of that power has to be consistent with the basic principle of our constitution—that the Government are selected by the House of Commons and survive only as long as they enjoy a majority in the House of Commons. For well over 110 years, whenever a vote of confidence has been lost in the House of Commons, the Government then go straight to the country. Why is that? It should not be us or them down there who choose who should be the next Government; it should be the public who choose.

Mr David Heath, the deputy leader of the House of Commons, suggested that there was an exception to that, when Mr Stanley Baldwin was defeated at the end of 1923 and Mr Ramsay MacDonald formed the first Labour Government. What happened in 1923 was that Mr Stanley Baldwin was defeated on the King’s Speech. The position should clearly be that if the Government fail to get the confidence of the House of Commons after an election, the right thing is not to ask the public to think again in a new election, but then and only then to choose a new Government in the Commons.

The twin aims of depriving the Prime Minister of the right to fix the election date while preserving the bedrock principle that if the Government lose the confidence of the House they should call an election can be achieved with a Bill that says that there should be a fixed-term parliament of X years subject to the PM having an obligation to advise Her Majesty to have a general election when his Government had obtained the confidence of the House of Commons but then been defeated on an Opposition vote of confidence. That would meet every aim that the coalition has. Why on earth has it proposed this 55 per cent? As my noble friend Lord Hunt said, a whole variety of different reasons have been suggested. But think what the consequences of that 55 per cent are. First, it means that this Government are not affected by the fixed-term Act because they have more than 55 per cent of the MPs. Secondly, well over half the years since 1945 have involved Governments with more than 55 per cent of the MPs, so it is likely that in years to come this provision will not apply to most Governments. Thirdly, what would happen if the coalition splits up? Fifty-three per cent is the number of non-Tory MPs in the Commons. If there was a vote of confidence—

[The Earl of Onslow]

If the party had more than 55 per cent of the MPs and the Prime Minister wished to call an early election after three and a half years, all the party has to do is to get 55 per cent in the Division and, lo and behold, it gets an election and the fixed-term Parliament is quashed.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The noble Earl has got it completely. That is exactly the point. The coalition Government can have an election whenever they want. They say now that it will be on 15 May 2015. Can noble Lords imagine a Prime Minister saying, in two years’ time, that circumstances have changed, and that of course it was right then to commit themselves to 15 May 2015 but the right thing to do now is for the country to see whether, in the current circumstances, it wants to go on with the current Government. It is a totally bogus piece of legislation as far as concerns the current Government.

I was about to talk about what happens when the coalition splits up. On the basis of the 55 per cent, if it splits up and is then defeated in a vote of confidence by the 53 per cent of non-Tories, there would not be a Dissolution. Until Mr David Heath spoke on Tuesday there would have been, as I describe it, a zombie Government. There would not be an Opposition who wanted to form a Government and the Conservative Government would not have the confidence of the Commons. What would then happen? I assume that there would have to be an election. If there has to be an election in those circumstances, why is there this 55 per cent in the first place? It is obviously a botched attempt by the coalition to stay in power even though it had lost the confidence of the House of Commons. I hope that it will admit that as soon as possible.

That sort of problem is something that this House would be incredibly good at fixing. However, we read in the newspapers of an intention to stuff this House with 100 coalition-supporting Peers. I am sure that it is not true and that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, will confirm that, because then Parliament would lose the one part of the body that has stood up to the Executive over the past 10 or 11 years.

The last point I want to make is that there was a sinister reference to the Salisbury convention by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Members of this House will remember that the Salisbury convention has at its heart the proposition that if the electorate has endorsed something—for example the Labour Party's proposals in 1945—it would be wrong for this House to reject it. It cannot seriously be suggested that because fixed-term Parliaments were referred to in the Liberal Democrat manifesto—the Liberal Democrats who lost more seats than they had before—that that represents endorsement by the electorate. If that is the case, then the coalition has very severely lost its way.